Text Credit: Roshan D

Books are considered to be a person’s best friend. It does everything that you’d expect your best friend to do. It tells you stories about the people that you might have once heard about or stories about a complete stranger. While it lets you experience different emotions and lets you walk alongside with the characters of the story, it sometimes lets you want to be the character. So, taking this into account, let’s explore five books written by Indian authors that are a must read.

A God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Set in the backdrops of a small village in Kerala, it is a story about the childhood experience of fraternal twins. With a few unfortunate turn of events, their lives completely changed and took a detour.

This was Roy’s debut novel and was published in the year 1996, making it one of the all-time favorites of the readers. In 1997, The God of Small Things won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction and was listed as one of the New York Times Notable Books of the Year.

The Palace of Illusions: A Novel by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Have you wondered what if Mahabharata, the Sanskrit epic of ancient India was retold from a woman’s perspective? Well, The Palace of Illusions: A Novel is an execution of Hindu epic Mahabharata from Draupadi’s viewpoint, namely, that of a woman living in a patriarchal world.

A book that captured the true emotions of Draupadi, it was critically acclaimed by many with positive reviews. The novel written by the award-winning Indian-American author and poet, this is considered to be one of the finest works by the author.

Looking for a twist in the plot and a different perspective, you know where to lay your hands.

Nacropolis by Jeet Thayil

Set in the 1970s Old Bombay, Narcopolis tells the story about the city of intoxication, intoxicated in the influence of opium. The novel draws on his own experiences as a drug addict, but the story expands with characters that are closely associated with the drug scene of the city.

As a novel that took the author five years to write, this book was nominated for Man Booker Prize in 2012. As a book that talks about the darkest side of the drug scene in a city, some might find depressing and some exciting. But it’s worth a read.

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

Written by Rupi Kaur, an Indo-Canadian poet and illustrator, this book is a collection of poetry, prose and hand-drawn illustrations dealing with themes of violence, abuse, love, loss, and feminism.

Critically appreciated by all around the world, the book topped the New York Times bestsellers list and remained on it for 52 consecutive weeks. While emotions are a thing for all the readers, Milk and Honey will make you experience all kinds of emotions, empowering you to do things that you haven’t do before.

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

A recipient of Man Booker Prize 1981, the story is set in the context of actual historical events. The story told by Saleem Sinai, the chief protagonist was born in the midnight of the independence of India and the partition of British India.

Written by Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie, a British Indian novelist, and essayist, this novel is considered as an example of postcolonial, postmodern and magical realist literature. In addition to the positive acclimations received, the book was also awarded Booker of Bookers prize and was listed as the best-loved novels on the BBC’s The Big Read poll of the UK.

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Text credits : Rochelle D’souza          Image Credits

“If you were born with the weakness to fall you were born with the strength to rise”
                                                                                                     -Rupi Kaur

Poetry isn’t about big words and long winding verses. Poetry isn’t just rhyme and rhythm and meter and measures. Poetry isn’t really ‘poetry’ unless is comes from an outpouring of emotion, unless it is a form of expression. Poetry is a medium to communicate one’s deepest thoughts and feelings and if anyone knows of this the best, it’s Rupi Kaur.

A Canadian poet of Indian origin, Rupi was born in Punjab and moved with her Sikh family to Toronto when she was four. While in college, Rupi began posting her poems on her social media, where she garnered immense fame. She then went on to self-published a book of poetry and prose titled Milk and Honey in 2014. Her book featured over 200 pieces of poetry and prose written in Kaur’s trademark short, simple verse – with her own illustrations acting as visual punctuations. The book dealt with themes of survival and the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity and went on to sell over one million print copies.

“People aren’t used to poetry that’s so easy and simple,” she said in an interview with The Guardian.

And that is key that she has used to ensure that she is connected strongly with millions of young people worldwide. Her poetry does not need heavy analysis. Rather she prefers to tell it like it is. According to her, each chapter of her books serve a different purpose, deal with a different pain, heal a different heartache

“I don’t fit into the age, race or class of a bestselling poet,” she says, “I used to submit to anthologies and magazines when I was a student – but I knew I was never going to be picked up. All their writing was, you know, about the Canadian landscape or something. And my poem is about this woman with her legs spread open.”

Her critics, though many, cannot help but admit that there is little doubt that Kaur is at the forefront of a poetry renaissance that is currently taking place in the literary world.

She is unashamedly ambitious and a workaholic. And is already on her way into writing the first 10 chapters of her first novel – “I’m just free-writing it at the moment” – and has stated that she is also planning to work on turning her poetry music, as well as experiment with screenwriting, films, and photography. The 25-year-old poet, writer, illustrator, and performer published her second book called ‘the sun and her flowers’ earlier this month.

Rupi Kaur

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Here are a few of our favorite pieces of prose and poetry by this amazing writer:

The post Rupi Kaur- An Outpouring Through Poetry appeared first on FWD Life | The Premium Lifestyle Magazine |.